


colour your cartography in your dreams of me

by elainebarrish



Category: Last Tango In Halifax
Genre: F/F, anyway this isn't good, every time i interact w these two i literally hyperventilate, i rushed the end like a LOT and you can totally tell im sorry, im not gonna tag anyone else no else MATTERS, this is about how they're in LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: gillian wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to be able to meet Caroline's gaze without feeling like she's been punched in the gut
Relationships: Gillian Greenwood/Caroline McKenzie-Dawson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	colour your cartography in your dreams of me

**Author's Note:**

> OK SO anyway i love em. bertolucci stolen from viviandarkbloom bc their are we cool vincent series is literally canon.
> 
> ALSO huge shout out to my year 13 english lit teacher, whomst made us read sally wainwright scripts and let us convince her into believing caroline/gillian had a shot. they never did. but this was back in s3 so like a lot was happening and walking into school to yell at ur hot teacher about how gay these middle aged women were was kind of an important experience for 18 yo me. miss horne if u read this ur the tru mvp i was obsessed w u

Gillian's good at denying herself the things she really wants, good at saying no to the things that she really needs, good at knowing the right answers when Caroline dangles what seems like the perfect solution in front of her. She's good at knowing, seven years on, that this wouldn't be good for her, good at knowing that any opportunity for this, them, has long since passed. Caroline has no awareness, Gillian's sure, of what she thought had lingered between them, doesn't know what Gillian had thought sometimes, late at night when they're wine drunk and she's smiling at her, sure that Caroline hadn't felt it, and she's always been good at reading the signals. 

So she says no, puts that harebrained scheme away and pretends like it never happened, they both do, and they continue to make their lives work even when they were sure that they no longer could, and Gillian is mostly just glad that she hadn't been the one to suggest it, even as they don't do it, even as she knows that Caroline hadn't really meant it, not in a way that was practical. They don't  _ belong _ together, not really, and Gillian lives in a space where the awareness of that sometimes tries to drive her insane, lives in such a way where sometimes that is untenable, unsurvivable. But that's always been the thing about her; she's good at making it work.

They sit too close and it drives her insane, this thing, this  _ want _ and she says “you deserve someone nice” and what she really means is you deserve someone better than me, someone who can give you all of the things that her and her sheep farm and her haunted barn can’t. What she really means is “I love you” and “I want this to be good for you” and “I want you but I can’t, won’t, be good”. It’s a cliché, it’s ridiculous, and she feels every inch of it, every inch of this completely stupid situation that she’s in, this situation where she’s found one person who is kind to her, one person with whom she gets on with, and she immediately finds tension within it. She can’t help it, obviously, but it’s just so classically  _ her _ , such a classic Gillian screw-up that she can’t even look at herself sometimes. 

She denies herself the one thing she really really wants, the one thing that she knows she can't have, because she's over the part of her life where she makes horrible decisions and makes everyone else pick up after her, had left that with Robbie's move to Canada. So they continue, and if sometimes she thinks about leaning in, thinks of curling her hand around the back of Caroline's neck and pulling her forwards, that's between herself and the gods she doesn't believe in.

Caroline smiles across a room, she draws her in like a moth to a flame, and Gillian goes, she goes and goes and goes, is gone on her, on the way that she looks in Gillian’s kitchen, gone on the way that her hair flies around her face as she stands in Gillian’s field, gone on eyes lit up by the sun and a hand on Gillian’s forearm. They’re like that, with the touching, and Gillian maybe should be denying herself it, should maybe stop reaching out, but just because she can say the right things doesn’t mean she can stop herself from wrapping an arm around her, can stop herself from putting herself close enough to Caroline to feel the heat of her.

She keeps saying all of the right things, makes jokes about Judith, about Caroline going for it, makes jokes about Caroline finding someone, and she doesn't think about the way that the idea actually makes her feel, doesn't seriously consider what it would be like to have Caroline talk about someone again. Ruth was fine, because Ruth was nothing and then something and then even more nothing, because Ruth was more like a quick blip of interest, was like one horrible date where she was never mentioned again, either before or after. But Caroline in love? Gillian doesn't know if she can do that now, remembers enough from when everything happened with Kate that while she glows and she loves that for her, she doesn’t know if she can take it again, not when it’s directed so strongly at someone else, not when Caroline gets that little secretive smile on her face when she talks about Ruth, those times when she thought that maybe that could be something.

Gillian’s fifty-three and she’s wearing yearning like a personality trait, reaching out and holding back in quick succession, executing both in unison, and she knows, has read the books and the poems and seen the films, has seen a million depictions of this very moment in time that make it into something poetic, something tragically beautiful, and she knows that it’s not that. Has been through enough and felt enough and lived enough that she knows that none of those fucking poets are thinking about what it’s like to have fucking woodworm, they’re not writing about the sheer indignities of the day to day, and she honestly can’t blame them. There’s nothing poetic about the slow avalanche of life, nothing to be romanticised in the endless, consuming, overwhelming mundanity of it, the way that it constantly feels like something that’s about to cave in around her, the way that she feels as though one wrong move and everything is going to fall in.

It’s not all middle-aged melodrama, not really, not wholly, but they don’t get drunk together anymore, because Gillian doesn’t trust herself anymore, because she knows to deny herself that, and they go to Hebden Women’s Disco and she doesn’t drink that much, and Caroline gets numbers and Gillian doesn’t look at anyone, because Caroline still doesn’t know. Caroline doesn’t know, somehow, even though Gillian didn’t think she was hiding it, and now it’s too late for her to come out without it being some kind of  _ thing _ , even though it’s not, not really, it’s just something she forgot to disclose, because occasionally sleeping with women isn’t a thing to her, although maybe it is since she hasn’t told anyone. Caroline doesn’t even pick up on how many of them Gillian knows, doesn’t pick up on Gillian knowing about this, doesn’t seem to think anything about her suggesting it, because Gillian is doing and saying the right things, is being the right form of supportive, is doing it  _ for  _ her in the right way, in a way that Caroline believes in.

It becomes a monthly thing, amongst the messiness of surviving, they always go, and they always just sit together, always sit too close and act too  _ together _ for anyone to approach, and Gillian knows that’s what it looks like, knows that people only approach Caroline when Gillian’s gone to the bar for drinks, or when she goes to the loo. She knows that wrapping an arm possessively across the back of Caroline’s chair doesn’t go unnoticed to anyone else, but Caroline never says anything about it, never asks why they still bother to go if Gillian’s just going to monopolise her. She knows she’s getting in the way of her happiness, knows that Caroline could easily find someone in this crowd in the way that she can’t at work, can’t in spaces where everything is a question, even if she never finds another Kate, even if it’s not her next great love.

Her hands shake and sometimes her mouth is dry, and Caroline just sees these things, just accepts them like she accepts their closeness, like she doesn’t question the way that Gillian jostles in tight to her always. Caroline still acts like she’s unflappable, acts like nothing Gillian does can surprise her, like these things are just parts of her and they’re friends, they’re close, they love each other, because it’s been seven years of shared birthdays and dinners and child rearing. It’s been seven years of shimmering, simmering tension and Gillian finds herself thinking sometimes that maybe this will go on forever, that they’ll keep on like this, and no one will ever realise that there’s some kind of passion play playing out inside her head. Seven years of something that has turned into tenderness, something that makes Gillian feel safe in a way she doesn’t understand, even as she thinks, in her melodramatic moments, that it could easily be something that ruins everything.

They see each other constantly, text even through that, phone calls in the car to organise dinners and childcare and just to check in, to complain about Celia or about pretty much anything, actually, updates on the background of Ruth’s absolutely insane relationship - she never does call Gillian. And sometimes they pick the kids up at the same time, and sometimes on the weekends Caroline drives out to the farm so that they can share childcare and a glass of wine over lunch and Gillian can take some kind of deep breath because when Caroline’s there she feels less like she’s drowning. Flora and Calamity are maybe in love and that in itself is a decent reason for Caroline to get away from a house that is mostly empty these days, with John gone and Lawrence being himself. 

Caroline breezes in, on a Saturday, doesn’t bother to call ahead, and Gillian’s kitchen is already full, Ellie and the baby and Raff and Calamity all clustered together, all at the table trying to attempt something like a decent lunch. Gillian looks at her, over the heads of Calamity and Flora yelling at having been reunited, and she doesn't even have to say anything, because Caroline's shrugging and smiling and pulling a bottle of wine from beneath her loose cardigan. 

"Here to get me drunk, are you?"

"We both know it would take more than one bottle if I was," Caroline replies, coy, smiling, already rummaging through the odds and ends drawer to find the corkscrew, Gillian turning to get two glasses, the others mysteriously melting away like they often seemed to after hellos.

“You say that like you don’t know about the emergency brandy,” Gillian grins, quick and shy and tries to breathe in without it catching, tries to tamp down on whatever is happening inside her chest.

“I can never be sure whether it’s been topped up since our last foray into drunkenness,” Caroline paused, halting her pour to think. “Actually it’s been quite a long time, hasn’t it?”

“A fair while, yeah,” Gillian says, scooping up her glass and sitting at the table, Caroline following her, sunlight spilling into the kitchen and lighting up her stray hairs, making her golden, and as Gillian slouches into the shade she thinks about how that’s some truly metaphorical shit. “You called any of them girls that gave you numbers last week?” she asks, because she knows how to do this, knows what she should do.

“You know I taught one of them? It’s not even the first time that’s happened.”

“Well I mean you did the whole sweeps around in that robe thing and shouts at people, I’m sure all of the young posh lesbians are ecstatic you’re gay.”

“You know, I’m not sure I had a crush on any of my teachers at school, is this a new phenomenon?” Caroline leans in, like they’re sharing secrets, and Gillian distantly wishes her table was wider, thinks she doesn’t need that golden head anywhere near hers, doesn’t need to think about leaning in, doesn’t need to think about burying her hand into fine webs of gold.

“Oh come on, you must have! We all had that one young teacher that everybody thought was fit.”

“My friends were all obsessed with that one PE teacher but I was, of course, busy being…” she pauses, like she always does, and waves a hand instead, because she still can’t really say it, even after years of actually living it.

“Didn’t even have an English teacher you were potentially obsessed with, looking back?”

“I don’t even remember…” she trails off, eyes widening. “Oh God Miss,” she clicks her fingers, trying to recall it. “Oh I don’t remember, she was my Chemistry teacher, at A Level, I hung off of her every word, I used to hang around at the end of class to talk to her, she was only a couple of years out of university. At the time I just thought she was really, I don’t know, cool.”

“If you ever remember her name you should try and find her on Facebook, see if you can recreate our star-crossed parents,” Gillian snorts, and Caroline rolls her eyes.

“God, I’d totally forgotten about her. Maybe I should,” she shakes her head, as though getting rid of the thought, and takes another sip of wine. “What about you?”

“Me?” Gillian almost inhales her wine, panics that Caroline thinks that she should phone one of the women that she’d spoken to, because she had talked to many of them, had gotten phone numbers at the bar, because flirting is easy when you have no stakes in it, when you don’t even slightly mean it, when you’re hung up on someone else.

“Any conquests on the horizon?” Caroline continues, and Gillian takes a deep breath because of course she didn’t mean that, didn’t mean anything, just knows about Gillian’s past proclivities for terrible ideas.

“No I think I’m giving up on men,” Gillian says, without thinking, and almost laughs just at the truth of it.

“Maybe for the best, considering your past,” Caroline pulls a face and Gillian laughs.

“Oi! I’m a reformed character, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh yes, of course, completely reformed,” Caroline says, and refills their glasses, and Gillian tries not to squirm when Caroline looks at her, a smile threatening to break across her face, because when Caroline looks at her now it’s so  _ fond _ , so warm and welcoming, and Gillian just  _ wants _ , wants so much and so badly that she doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t know where she can put it down. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to exist in the wake of that one look, doesn’t know how to continue to be herself, sitting at her kitchen table in the afternoon sun with one hand curled around the stem of her wine glass, doesn’t know how to look up into eyes that crinkle at the corners with the force of Caroline’s warmth towards her.

They finish off the bottle and Caroline reveals that there’s another one, tucked inside her enormous handbag, and Gillian thinks about how everything in Caroline’s life is so neat, so orderly, everything lined up in a way that Gillian could never belong to, could never fit into. But somehow Caroline makes herself belong here, exactly where she shouldn’t, and Gillian thinks, sometimes, how nice it would have been to live in Caroline’s neat house, how nice it could have been to peel carrots at Caroline’s table in her kitchen that was a million pounds, how she could even have gotten used to the dog. She thinks about what it would be like, to be at Caroline’s with Caroline and Flora and no one else, and she thinks that maybe that truly could have been some kind of perfect, but she’s got sheep to look after, she’s got things that get in the way, and she’d be no good as someone’s wife, not like she’s thinking of, not like she would be, at Caroline’s with her.

Somewhere into the last glass of the second bottle she drifts off into some kind of daydream, where Caroline comes home from her high stress headteacher job that she’s currently complaining about in the real world and kisses Gillian as she walks through the door, and she remarks that something smells good, and Flora runs to see her, darting through Gillian’s legs. Ruth gets up too, pads up to the door to see her, and Caroline is home at 5pm to dinner on the table (a little early, she’d remark), and Gillian just waiting to hear about her day. This daydream is rudely shattered when she realises that she hadn’t even been doing the one part of that daydream that she’s allowed, which is the Caroline talking about work part, and that Caroline’s stopped talking and she’s looking at her.

“Sorry about that Caz, totally spaced out for a minute there.”

“No, no, you’re right, it’s boring,” she waves a hand, and Gillian laughs.

“Now I never said that.” 

“You didn’t have to, your glazed over eyes have been telling me for the last five minutes.”

“You know I love your “oh my very well paid job is soooo hard” stories!” Gillian says, laughing.

“Just like how I love it when you go on about that particular sheep you’re in love with,” Caroline says, and it’s joking and some kind of flirtatious because Caroline just does that, with her leaning in and her arm touching and her fucking soft eyes.

"Jealous?" she says and then she scoffs, makes some kind of weird noise that's pure panic and high pitched laughter and Caroline just laughs, shrugs, leans in like she's going to say something completely different to what she does.

"Maybe I just think it's unhealthy for you to have such a relationship with said sheep," and it's that kind of diplomatic that's perfect for teasing, and it lets the tension give way to Gillian spluttering insults and gasping at such insinuations.

They don't make it onto the brandy, because they've suddenly found themselves in need of preparing dinner, and she knows that she could ask Raff and Ellie to do it, knows that they could take over childminding instead, but Gillian likes their kitchen oasis, has liked watching the shadows get longer and the dark corners get darker. So she gets Caroline chopping something and goes about some kind of spaghetti sauce, something that'll be some kind of Bolognese by the time she's done, and Caroline takes every opportunity to flick her with the tea towel, laughing too loud for both of them crowded around the stove. 

It's easy to imagine pulling her in for a kiss, when she's flushed and giggly and practically leaning on her, their heads bowed so close it's a wonder that they don't knock them together. It's easy to imagine kissing her all of the time, if she's honest, and every time she meets Caroline's eyes she thinks she wants it just that little bit more. They all crowd around the table for dinner, and Gillian wonders if Raff can tell, if he can see it, because these days he's a lot smarter about things like this than anyone ever really gives him credit for. So she tries to shut her giggling, traitorous mouth and distantly wishes that Caroline wouldn't lean so close, wouldn't settle so comfortably within what should be Gillian's bubble but is more theirs. 

Love in this instance is some ancient, immutable domesticity, is displayed in tiny movements and the warm smile when they knock elbows at the dinner table. Dinner finishes and everyone disperses and Caroline and Gillian continue chatting over empty plates, continue with their particular brand of bullshit, and then Caroline's rising to tidy, to wash up and flick bubbles at Gillian, who laughs in a quick, nervous way, like she expects some kind of recrimination for this cheerful moment, and it tugs at Caroline somewhere about her chest in a way that she never expected. Gillian as a nervous, hurt animal is something that she will never stop being surprised and somehow hurt by, something that will forever make her sad and unlock something like yearning within her. She wants to love her in a way that will be gentle and tender, in a way that will be some kind of unconditional, and she wants, desperately, for Gillian to believe it. For Gillian to not think that she can ever fuck this up, even if she never gets to act on this thing that’s been underlying in their interactions since they met.

When they’re done Gillian makes tea, spikes it with the whiskey that she keeps around for exactly that purpose, and they settle back in. Raff can be heard trying to convince Flora and Calamity that it’s time for bed, and no one bothers to ask Caroline if she’s staying because they know that she usually does, that there’ll be a bag in her boot with things for Flora, because she’s always prepared. They drink their tea and then the call for bedtime becomes serious enough that they’re distracted getting the kids ready, distracted with finding extra blankets for a nest in Calamity’s room, making sure Flora is comfortable with a sleepover, which she is because she loves Gillian almost as much as Caroline does. Gillian gets the task of reading them a story, Caroline presiding over them, watching as she tucks them in firmly but with an infinite tenderness, and gets on the floor with them to improvise some kind of ridiculous story about her favourite ram Bertolucci. 

And it is ridiculous, truly, but that is made clearest to Caroline by the way in which her heart does something that feels suspiciously like melting and also might be a heart attack, watching them. Gillian isn’t nervous like this, not even when she smiles up at Caroline, all hyperactive hand gestures and stupid voices and a grin so genuine it hurts Caroline to look at. It makes Caroline wish desperately that she could have this every night, that Flora could have it, because she knows that Flora deserves the best and when it comes to bedtime stories she doesn't think anyone could ever beat her.

The kids pass out, eventually, and they return downstairs to find Raff and Ellie have disappeared, left a note saying they've gone to the pub, and Caroline rolls her eyes.

"Didn't even ask if we'd mind minding the kids."

"I think they feel like they can since one of em's yours," Gillian laughs, and puts the kettle back on.

"You say that as though they don’t usually leave Calamity to you on a Saturday night.”

“Well it’s not like I’m going anywhere,” Gillian says, with a shrug.

“Look at you, a grandmother with no social life, we never expected it.”

“Oi shut up,” Gillian fills up their cups, spikes them for warmth because she knows she gets cold when it gets drafty in here at night, and flops down onto the sofa, Caroline following, and there’s been so many nights since that first confession that she doesn’t even think of secrets once spilled so long ago, doesn’t even think of things whispered in front of this same hearth. She throws a blanket at her, throws her feet up on the table in a way she tells Raff off for doing on a regular basis, and seizes the telly remote.

“Oh no I’m not watching whatever movie you’re about to put on,” Caroline moans, and Gillian laughs.

“Always so dramatic,” she says, but puts the remote down next to her on the sofa anyway, twists to look at her, her socked feet skidding along the table and coming close knocking over Caroline’s mug, inadvertently boxing Caroline in behind the outstretched length of her legs.

Caroline shifts to face her too, tucking one leg beneath herself, propping one arm on the back of the sofa, leaning in to her without even being fully cognizant of it, so Gillian is boxed in by her too, her sprawl contained by Caroline and the arm of the sofa, trapped. She edges around her to rescue her mug, takes a sip and watches Caroline balance hers on her thigh, watches her trace the rim of it slowly, quietly, like she’s thinking about something.

“What’s up?” she asks, after a quiet minute, her voice pitched low, and Caroline shakes herself like she can make whatever she was thinking disappear, and Gillian watches her put her smile back on, watches her eyes refocus as she comes back to herself.

“Nothing. Nothing,” she takes a deep breath, and fixes Gillian with pools of icy blue that make her leg start to jitter, or it’s just that she only becomes aware of it when Caroline puts her hand on her thigh to stop her, her hand warm and bleeding something that almost makes her gasp. It’s easy, familiar, a gesture they’ve repeated a million times, as easy as Gillian’s arm slung behind Caroline across a chair, as easy as rubbing shoulders in the kitchen earlier. Easy and familiar and daunting and new all at once and this is, in a lot of ways, too much for both of them, but they don’t move back, don’t try and reestablish their boundaries, because it’s been too long for them to change the pieces now, too long for them to try to pretend that they’re not wanting to be in each other’s space. 

“So are you really not gonna call? We’ve been a couple of times now, and you never call them,” Gillian says, always ready to grab onto something else, grab onto something that she thinks is the right thing to say, something that isn’t you’re driving me insane I want you I love you.

“I’m really not going to call any of them,” Caroline says, and shrugs, and doesn’t move her hand away, although Gillian has long stopped jiggling. “I like my life,” she says simply, and Gillian believes her, mostly.

“Don’t you miss it?” she asks, and Caroline shrugs.

“I miss  _ her _ , and I've had a few flings, as you know, but I think maybe that was all I get.” She tilts her head, doesn’t bother to say that she means Kate because they both know, will always know. “Do you miss it?”

“God no,” Gillian laughs. “I’ve always made entirely the wrong decisions, ended up with entirely the wrong men,” she rolls her shoulders, works her jaw. “I don’t think it’s very likely that I’ll suddenly find someone that doesn’t turn out the same way everything else does.”

“Does this mean we can give up on Hebden’s Women’s Disco?” Caroline asks, and Gillian laughs.

“Hey we were always only there for you,” Gillian says, and Caroline rolls her eyes.

“You were very  _ eager _ though, weren’t you?” It’s pitched low, flirtatious and stupid and Gillian’s pulse flutters in her neck like a traitor, and she hates the way her whole body seems to want to sway forward, curls her fists in her lap nervously, and knows that Caroline sees.

“I was just trying to be a good friend,” she says, and it’s high pitched and she hates the way that Caroline’s eyes seem to catalogue her, catalogue her reactions, and she realises that this is a conversation she’s been wanting to have for ages, that she was just waiting for a time where she thought Gillian would be pliable enough. “Guess I won’t do that anymore, then.”

“A good friend who drapes her arm along the back of my chair? Who makes it look as though we’re there together? Almost like you want a repeat of that time at the hotel, when we checked it out for our parents,” Caroline says, and she has no idea what she’s doing, why she’s saying anything, where she thinks this is going to go, and she chugs her tea like that’ll fortify her or something, because she did  _ not _ mean for this to go this far, for this to come up, however much she’d wondered.

“Ah, look, Caz,” she hedges, sitting up, moving away a little, but that just brings their faces closer together and god why does she always notice that, always notice how much time Caroline spends close enough for her to kiss.

“Why do we bother to go out when we could stay in, hmm?” Caroline continues, and she sees Gillian’s pulse going hummingbird fast in her neck, her eyes dark in the firelight, her jaw clenched tight. What is it about this woman, about her strength and her quick smiles and her ducked head. What is it about her, all small and compact and wiry, fast and fierce and easy to provoke. Caroline’s hand on her thigh tightens its grip, so it’s no longer just resting, and she feels the way the long muscles in her legs tense. 

Gillian knows that she could just laugh now and it would never get brought up again, knows that with one awkward move she could put the kettle back on and she could make Caroline watch that movie she refused to before, and she’d probably fall asleep during it and Gillian would cover her up with the blanket and then everything would go on as normal. This is not the end, not the place where it can’t be taken back, she thinks they could survive however far this goes, even if Gillian blurts that she loves her and they live happily ever after, even then, they could go back to this friendship that they’ve built. They’ve gotten through worse, gotten through so much, seen a lot together in the time they’ve been friends, in the time that they’ve been thrown together.

“You gonna regret this tomorrow?” she asks, instead, wonders vaguely if maybe it is something like loneliness that’s driven Caroline to this, driven her to the resident slapper.

“Never,” Caroline says, and Gillian laughs.

“They usually say that.”

“I mean it,” she says, and it’s gentle, and sincere, and Gillian’s fists unfurl in her lap and her shoulders fall, like she’s relaxing, like she’s accepting it. “I wouldn’t ruin things with you,” and her voice is so quiet it’s almost inaudible and Gillian feels herself falling even though she thought she was already gone, even though she thought she was at the bottom already.

She kisses her, and it’s too hard and too fast and Caroline draws back and then leans back in, takes her jaw in her hand gently, so fucking gently, and kisses her softly, slowly, like she’s something to be treasured. Gillian grabs onto her waist, holds on tight like she’s drowning, because maybe she is, maybe she’s drowning in the force of Caroline holding her like this, drowning as she actually feels as though she’s being held.


End file.
